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User blog:Asianpotter1/Glitchtale Season 2 Episode 1 review
At the time of writing this, episode 6 of season 2 has yet to come out. Additionally, the prequel story has also yet to come out. Glitchtale is owned and made by Camila Cuevas. ''' '''To start off with, I want everybody to keep in mind that this is not meant to be a bash/insult or attack on any of the people involved with the creation/production of Glitchtale. I have a deep respect for everyone who has contributed to Glitchtale. However, nobody is free from peer review or criticism. This is only my opinion and my interpretation of the story laid out so far. You are free to agree or disagree as you like. I’m open to debate things if there is something you believe I have gotten wrong. Once new information/episodes are released, I will look over the new information and probably update accordingly. I’ve chosen to go straight to season 2. There’s not much that’s particularly wrong with the first season, the story is pretty solid for what it is. Season 2 on the other hand, has more issues. Additionally, this is also where Glitchtale almost completely breaks off of the original UnderTale story. ''' '''Let’s get started with ep 1. My Sunshine Not even one month? According to Frisk/Camila, the monsters have been around for almost a month, let’s assume that’s somewhere between 3-4 weeks. For humans, who feared monsters enough to initiate a interspecies-war, to just forget about the past and hang around together as if nothing had happened in the past in the span of a single month? Time is a very important and very powerful tool in writing, but used wrong and it becomes a danger. By writing this way, Frisk is portrayed immediately as so incompetent that he can’t tell time, or read a calendar. There are plenty of “dumb” main characters, take many anime for instance, but they at least know how to look at numbers. The statement about the conditions of Monsters is also a problem. It’s implied that this treaty would grant human rights to monsters, meaning they would have all the same rights as a human citizen would. That sounds fine, but why does a clearly racist organization have such a large impact that their consent is required? Wouldn’t that be like saying african americans couldn’t be given equal rights unless the KKK said it was alright? ''' '''For that matter, why does the AMD even exist? Monsters haven’t been around for over a thousand years. That’s like PETA existing if no animal has been killed for over a thousand years. Yeah that doesn’t answer, that just makes things even dumber. There isn’t a reason why the AMD exists… well there is and there isn’t. If you watch the show, there isn’t a reason. If you follow the show, and then look in a completely different location like you were playing Destiny, there is a reason. ' '''Now, this is a thing that also really is annoying. A story should be self contained. When you watch a movie, or read a book, or play a game, the story of them all should be found within themselves. If information can only be found elsewhere, then that’s just lazy writing. A prequel shouldn’t fill in the holes, it should expand the world of the story. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk more about monsters and how obviously difficult it is to obtain work, especially after so long and no laws that support monsters as citize-' '''O-okay… how is Undyne part of a police force if they don’t have the same rights and probably aren’t considered citizens? How did she even become an active officer in less than a month? What was the treaty for again? Toriel also becomes a teacher at a human school, which means one of two things. Either # She has attained a human teaching license before the treaty was signed and in less than even 1 full month. # Her monster teaching license, if she even had one, was compatible with the human education/legal system, which again shouldn’t be possible. Just because you prepare for something doesn’t automatically mean you’re given the right. Imagine if anyone with a gun could be a police office-oh wait Undyne’s a policewoman… Also Gaster’s debut as a man of science in the human world is a problem for a few reasons as well. # How did he even get this all together? # How is a society that has lost its touch with magic accepted something rooted deeply in magic? # Why is anyone going crazy over his project? Considering what we later learn of how the core works. It’s not something particularly exciting or groundbreaking. Don’t see why it’s weird that people just accept a magic/non-scientific project? Well, that’s because of these statements: The human society shouldn’t have any grip on the concept of magic if, over the span of 1000 years, magic has fallen out of practice. This is a plot hole as we will discover much later. (also here’s another thing. Why not we be shown that humans are inadequate with magic instead of told?) Frisk… if you know you’re not qualified, you probably shouldn’t be doing the job. Your importance and impact in the entire story aside, you don’t make a fish climb a tree unless you want a time bomb of failure. Once again, Frisk is being painted as an incompetent person. Sure, he means well, but surely he gets that other people probably can do a better job than he can. There’s nothing suggesting that he’s even trying to improve. He’s not learning as he goes, he’s not taking any time to study politics or social interactions, he’s just taking up space… which actually is what politicians seem to do, so I guess he has his job down pat. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have finished the first 2 minutes of the episode which was all just an exposition dump… ''' '''Alright, so not too much later we have a couple problems with this next scene. # The car starts driving on the left side of the road and makes a 90° sharp turn. The car just straight up switches sides of the road. It starts on the left side of the yellow lines and shifts to the right side. That’s not how roads work. We don’t get an explanation as to why this even happens until later, and even then it won’t make sense. ''' # '''This girl starts on the right side of the road. Frisk walks on that same side of the road, he should’ve seen her before she started to walk onto the road. She’s also jaywalking, not that that matters because if Frisk has a bad concept of time what is his understanding of directions? 3. Suddenly, instead of being in the right lane, they’re in the middle, meaning they teleported to the right suddenly. ''' '''After the car hits the shield, it just explodes without a trace. That’ll make a little bit of sense later, but it also doesn’t make sense because the momentum that it had continues. The pink girl’s hair and clothes flutter back as if pushed by wind, but that couldn’t happen. Before you, and Frisk, can start questioning where that car went (and the possibility that Frisk just murdered someone) we move on to proper introductions. Remember when Frisk previously said “less than a month”? Here, Betty says “a month ago”. Also why would Frisk be the one all over the news instead of the fact that monsters have just randomly popped up after years and years of missing. I mean yeah he’s their “ambassador” but he doesn’t do a great job of it. Unless the “news” is a bunch of scandals or people trying to sue monsters even though that wouldn’t work because they’re not citizens and can’t go through the same process and-oh who cares, next line. Why is Betty surprised that an inter-species Ambassador has a busy schedule, especially if only a month has started since monsters appeared? Then again with how well monsters have integrated I too would be confused why Frisk has anything left to do. Also, they’re still in the middle of the road… are they not at all worried about another car? Suddenly they’re on the right sidewalk, and there’s a camera. Why does the AMD manage the city’s surveillance system? That’d be like if the KKK managed all of the traffic cameras and indoor security. Also, The camera is floating above the left lane, which doesn’t make sense. There’s no pole or wall this could be attached to. Why is it focused on the two? Does it just follow anyone who happens to be walking in this area? What happens if there’s just a ton of people walking around at once? Who manages these things and thinks it’s a good idea to just stare at random kids for no reason? Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC? Anyways, Before we continue any further, I’m going to address something that may come up. I imagine someone saying “You’re needlessly nitpicking the animation, it’s fine” or “You’re just being childish and looking for anything to make fun of. It’s just an animation error” or even “Camila Cuevas isn’t paid or a professional animator so give her a break.” You see, here’s the thing. 1st I’m not trying to make fun of Camila Cuevas and said as much from the beginning. This isn’t to bash on anyone, it’s to analyze and give criticism. 2nd, I wholeheartedly disagree when people say “it’s not professionally made, so mistakes are fine” just because someone isn’t paid by an organization to do something does not warrant an excuse. A project, especially one that the creator clearly cares about, should be looked at and paid the utmost attention. Warframe wasn't exactly backed by a huge triple A company, it was just a passion project and look how it turned out. 3rd, this animation is done frame by frame. Assuming the animation goes at say, 20 frames a second, and you have a 20 minute video, you get about 24,000 frames. That’s also assuming every frame is a different one, not just panning over a stillframe... which did happen in this episode. With that out of the way, time to switch over to Sans and Asriel. 4th, this isn’t me looking for problems. This is me turning the corner and there are problems. When you watch something playing out like it should, and then something out of left field happens, you will notice. Alright well I’m not sure why Asriel’s mouth is open, if someone else is talking. If it’s open either he was cut off just before he could speak, or he was already speaking which would make the demand completely pointless. In fact, Asriel’s mouth opens just before the other person says this, so there’s no reason to tell Asriel to talk if he was about to. So you’re telling me that this guy has been sitting here staring at Asriel, and vice versa, for 2 minutes without a single word? Why? For someone who doesn’t like wasting time Sans has wasted time like a champion. Mike Kroon would be proud. Otherwise, this scene is pretty well done. It gives some insight into who both Asriel and Sans are as people. Asriel is hesitant, having waited nearly a month before saying anything to Sans, and regretful about the things he did in the past even if he wasn’t in the right mind. Sans isn’t automatically accepting, but is willing to give the guy another chance. Uh, Betty, what are you doing? Yeah she was invited, but is nobody going to say anything about a complete stranger just walking around touching stuff? Why is this even a scene? What purpose does it serve other than showing Betty as an even more childish person, someone who probably shouldn’t be wandering around alone? There is no good reason for this to even be here except for eating a few precious seconds. So ask yourself this. Why is Jessica a silhouette? in her very first seen, she's not a silhouette. why is she now? It's not even foreshadowing anything. it goes nowhere. if it's supposed to be a shadow... it's not a shadow, right Frisk? ''' '''What “reunion” is Jessica talking about? What’s happening isn’t a reunion. It’s some kind of meeting/congressional hearing that would decide on some kind of peace treaty which already doesn’t make sense. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want to go, it’d be a waste of time since monsters already have jobs, hold businesses, own land, and can be tried and convicted under human law. I'm now on the human side. We assume humans are evil or uncaring, like how Chara just despised humans for undisclosed reasons, but they're pragmatic. Frisk, Jessica is the director of the AMD; a group who is stated to be keeping a watchful eye on Asgore, the King of ALL monsters. Considering they just seem to have surveillance cameras in places (and a few invisible cameras), wouldn’t they already know whether or not Monsters could be kind? Undyne joined the police force, Toriel, monster equivalent to a first lady, is a school teacher for little kids and hasn’t had any incidents. So Jessica just let the two into her car before even knowing where they were going to go? Why did she agree so spontaneously? Also… what is this car? There’s no rear or side-view mirrors, a huge space in between the chairs and side doors, and a huge empty space in the middle. If something hit the car, Frisk would go flying. There’s not even seatbelts. Also… Frisk isn’t sitting on anything. Unless the blue at the bottom is the seat...but then the gray cushion wouldn’t make sense. Betty is standing in between the seat and passenger seat for some reason too. Is this a car or a limo? Nice pun, but why did Sans say “first month” if according to Frisk, it hasn’t even been a month yet? Frisk really has no idea what he’s talking about. Why is the table so far away from him? His recliner is just randomly in the middle of this room filled with green boards? I guess he really doesn’t want an accidental spill so he just has his other hands carry things around for him. Also considering what we learn about Determination via Camila’s tumblr posts, why does the Determination soul display red as a majority and the other colors as minorities? Determination, according to Camila, is a perfect balance of all 6 soul traits. If that’s true, the bar should have an equal 1/6th of each color instead of having any red at all. Ancient text that just so happens to be in english, and we know the language back when monsters were on the surface was different. Waterfall had a bunch of inscriptions that weren’t in english, so why is an “ancient” text in english? Didn’t you just say the rest of the text wasn’t readable? What are you planning to read? Which you shouldn’t even be able to… because nothing has been signed yet. Unless of course the agreement/treaty was completely pointless. Now, you’d think that considering she’s the head of an organization in which monsterkind needs the consent of to do practically anything, that Gaster would have emailed her the AMD the schematics or his plans for expansion… but instead Jessica has no idea how the thing works except “it makes electricity”. How did Gaster already get on expanding the CORE without anyone knowing about it? Magical electricity? What’s the difference between that and normal electricity? There’s no need to suggest “magical electricity”.I can sum up the core easy without “magical electricity”. Watch, “The CORE is a steam-based generator. The steam itself is generated using water and the underground lava lakes.” I refer back to my previous statement. How did Gaster manage to put the plans into action without the approval of the AMD? What “other parties” are going to be present? The anti-eco friendly committee? Later we see that he clearly built the housing for whatever he would be used for expansion, how? What was the treaty for again? Anyways after a pretty nice X-men pun we cut to this bit, where everyone is tilted over to the side. ' Jessica… you’re being lead around by the Ambassador of monster kind, whose custody is owned by the Dreemurrs most likely. (if not then, well that’s a whole nother story) and have been lead to a school that is named after Frisk’s mom who is a Dreemurr. How would you not be able to figure this out? Why is Jessica, head of the AMD, also dumb like Frisk and Betty?' Wait a minute if you were going to immediately cut to them already meeting up with Toriel then what was the point of showing them outside where Jessica could ask Frisk who they were meeting with? ' '''Wait a minute, why are there children at the school right now? If it’s a school day, why is Frisk going around instead of being in school? Sure, he’s the ambassador, but doesn’t seem like Toriel would care about that. Frisk isn’t even good at his job, self proclaimed by the way, so why would he be excused? Why isn’t Betty going to classes? Where has she been like… ever? ' '''Sorry Cam (that’s his name) but where did you come from? The classroom was empty, just two or three scenes ago. I guess greens can also teleport just like Sans. Can’t all monsters force human souls out of their bodies? They do it whenever they start a battle anyways. It has nothing to do with being a teacher. Okay so maybe It’s just me, but I think that if Betty were trying to hide something, she wouldn’t say anything while she did it. If the pan just showed her glancing down and covering something up while Toriel continued, it’d make for a better suspense. Otherwise this is just too blatant, too obvious that something is out of the ordinary. In this sense “less is more”. Wasn’t that pink thing in her sleeve a second ago? How did it get out with nobody noticing. Wasn’t Frisk the one who took the initiative and said he’d go find her in the first place? Did he forget or did she forget? Maybe there should be a “dumb statement chart” but no paper is long enough. How did they open businesses within less than 1 month, and before the AMD signed the agreement? What was the agreement for again? Considering how people usually feel about spiders and fire, I don’t know how they’d be considered the most popular restaurants. Does this world not have health inspectors? Actually, makes me wonder, how does Muffet feel about exterminators? Does Grillby think Firefighting are a race crime or a gang war? Be interesting to see how the monsters re-integrated, but no such luck. Also remember what I said before when Frisk was trying to convince Jessica? Monsters also have the most popular restaurants. Food is like, in the top 5 things humans prioritize above anything else. What was the treaty for again? Maybe because she said she wasn’t going? How would Sans even know whether she’d be there or not? He wasn’t with them at the time. Are we going with the "Sans knows everything" thing already? ''' '''When was it ever conveyed that Betty didn’t have magical powers? Does Frisk have amnesia or something? First he didn't remember time, and now he thinks something happened when it didn't? Am I the only one that finds it ironic that a school with the intent to bridge the gap between two species uses segregation as a core system? Is Toriel Racist? I mean, she’s segregating people based on color. That’s also a bad environment for children. By putting people of similar traits together exclusively, you reduce the potential chance for students to learn from each other. Diversity is important because it can expand one’s views and their perspectives. Can’t happen if you don’t have that kind of opportunity. Toriel has created a culture of seclusion and ignorance in this sense because the children will only be around like minded people and no contradictory opinions. Wait, does that mean the school kicked her out? Or she wasn’t enrolled. It’s the latter, but how’d she get into the school to begin with? Wouldn’t any staff or student wonder why this pink chick is just wandering around and stalking Toriel? Is nobody in this world competent? Frisk can't tell time and makes things up, Toriel is racist, Betty jaywalks in Initial-D land, Jessica not being able to read, etc etc. Why is Frisk staying at Gaster’s lab? What purpose does that serve instead of just going home? So… she said she wouldn’t go and now she did go. Why did she? Was Sans and Jessica in on something? Why did she show up here especially after what happened and what she was firmly adamant on? How did nobody, especially Frisk, not know that she did come here? wouldn't that kind of be important information? Who is this? What even is this meeting? it's like a congressional hearing, but doesn't this take place in a kingdom? why is there a congress in a kingdom? why isn't this the royal court or something to that degree? What was the treaty for again? It was Frisk, and couldn’t have been any longer than maybe a week. I’d argue he was only down there for maybe a day. There's no reason for him to bring up her daughter and Frisk should have been the very obvious answer to this. nobody needed to know about any of the other children. obviously they have no idea how the barrier was broken, meaning they have no info on it period. If he wanted to avoid any and all trouble, he could easily say something like "The children were unable to cross the barrier without taking one of our lives, and refused to do so. eventually, they died as all things do." and problem solved... but he doesn't say anything like that. instead he just vaguely alludes to murder and Jessica somehow manages to pick up on that. What are these shadows supposed to be? Are they pointing at each other? Why? Why is this a scene? neither of those shadows are Jessica, neither of those look monster. where are they going? Why is Frisk a frame away from dabbing? again it's another chance to eat away at the time. '' 'Wait, why is it daytime? It was in the middle of the night earlier. Wait, how does time work here?' right... '''Did they spend a whole 12 hours just beating Asgore to death with questions and not signing what they should have been? What was the treaty for again?' So is Jessica also blind? That’s not how shadows work. The light would clearly show who this person is. Granted, the silhouette effect is so we don’t know who it is, but if it’s just an effect then that’s stupid. Jessica should know who the person is if the silhouette is just an effect, and if she does know, why is she not at all confused? It’s like she knew this all along, but couldn’t/shouldn’t have. What’s the point of even showing them? They could easily just have been a formless voice in Jessica’s head, which could build even better suspense and build her character. Maybe she would have MPD or DID. could’ve, should’ve, didn’t. In summary, it feels like there's a lot to be desired. The characters aren't given the time they need to establish themselves. It's been (arguably) a month and clearly a lot has happened. it feels more like this episode was trying to kinda gloss over each important character but mainly develope Jessica and Frisk. And yeah, Jessica has been established, but her development feels way too fast paced. She goes from anti-monster, which flips on a dime after getting a vietnam flashback, and then she unfairly calls Asgore a murderer, and then goes on full-genocide mode. This should have been broken into two parts. ' '''Part 1 should have been establishment. First reduce the opening monologue. Take out the bits where Frisk is talking about Undyne, Gaster, Toriel, etc. Those could easily be ''and are shown through the episode. Show the characters and how they've turned out after all this time instead of just telling us. What they could have done with the car is have it actually stay there after crashing, and just before Frisk and Betty leave Undyne could arrive on scene. She is a police officer after all. Put a few Nobel Prize or two on one of Gaster's walls to show his achievements. (on a sidenote Gaster's explanation of the CORE doesn't mesh well with how his incident was portrayed. in Glitchtale, he fell into the CORE and got scattered, but how does a thermal generator get you Doctor Who'd? Is that the differentiation between electricity and magical electricity?) Toriel's scene should have been far more important than it was. it was a chance for us to learn more about how souls and human magic works, since we don't get any actual explanation. Humans can just make constructs after it being unlocked. We don't see anyone training to use magic or any difficulty in doing so. Then it could end with Jessica dashing off and Frisk going after her. Part 2 should be a direct continuation of that ending scene. Frisk and Betty are starting to look around for Jessica like they did and actually have some dialogue between Betty and Frisk. Not just Betty being super random and asking to tag along. Give them some kind of relationship that shows Frisk didn't just bring her out of pity or fearing she'd screw something up if left alone. Give us a reason to actually care about this person called "Betty" that doesn't just make her feel like some random scatterbrain. On the way they could have met with Sans and Asriel who are trying to hang out with one another. Make Asgore's scene more clear that he indeed killed the kids, giving Jessica more of a reason to lash out. Then in the ending scene, don't show any silhouettes or trees. just have the dialogue box be there without any body. That way there could be more intrigue and interest on Jessica herself. The episode isn't bad per se, but as a return to what was a good ending, it wasn't as good as it could have been. Well that was a fun first episode… more or less. Anyways time to get onto ep 2… oh boy Category:Blog posts